User blog:Mr. Bambu/Warcraft Calc: The Sundering
Premise So I did a calc on this a long time ago, in which Malfurion Stormrage basically collapses the arcane foundation of the world, the Well of Eternity. Doing this causes the MASSSIVE city of Zin-Azshari or however you spell it to plummet to the ocean. However, I've been looking through lore, and it apparently created the huge whirlpool called The Maelstrom that still surges in the ocean today. So let's calc that. Calc So, this should be rotational kinetic energy. The calc for that is RE = 0.5 * I * ω² ω = RPM (Rotations Per Minute) I = moment of inertia (m^4) To calculate moment of inertia, use this: 3/10 * m * r^2 (for a cone, anyways) m = mass r = radius We can assume some speeds for the water here based on the fact that it is considered really fast by the residents of Azeroth. As a low-end, we can assume baseline Supersonic (player-characters should be of this speed for bullet-dodging), high-end Hypersonic (most mid-tier foes are of this speed, such as end-of-game PCs), and our high-end and be the dead middle of MHS, if it is to be considered faster spinning than the high-tiers of the verse (those that scale to Deathwing and the like). So, in terms of meters per second, all this translates to 377.3 m/s, 3430 m/s, and 171500 m/s. Here's an image of the planet seen from space. Luckily, I found an image with the Maelstrom in view. So let's compare. The diameter of Earth is 12742 km. Comparatively, that whirlpool is 2889.58 km wide (making our radius 1444.79 km). Average depth of the ocean is about 3.69 km deep. We can get volume now, and this will give us the mass of displaced water. Density of water is about 997 kg/m^3. Volume of a cone is 3.23e7 km^3, or 3.23e16 m^3. Mass is 3.220e19 kg. We have mass, we have radius, so let's move on to the next component, RPM. Linear Velocity will be our aforementioned speeds. We'll use this for the sake of saving time. Low-End RPM: 0.00249 RPM Mid-End RPM: 0.02267 RPM High-End RPM: 1.13352 RPM Now for Moment of Inertia, we get 1.396e25. Goodie. We can do our actual calc now. Low-End: 4.328e19 Joules, Island level Mid-End: 3.587e21 Joules, Large Island level+ High-End: 8.968e24 Joules, Continent level However, this all occurred about ten thousand years ago. The Maelstrom is still going. This is the KE of the object at the time, but to keep that up for that amount of time is incredible. We could potentially multiply it for the time it has kept going, but honestly I'd have no idea how to do that, so let's leave it be. In my personal opinion, I believe the High-End is more likely. This Maelstrom devastates warships instantly, which are faster than the mid-tiers of the verse, who are the Hypersonic speed. That said, it is also considered fast by the aforementioned high-tiers- the ones that scale to the whole MHS feat thing. So. Yeah. Malfurion Stormrage did this. We finally have a basis for 6-A High-Tiers aside from "Inferior to Deathwing". Tallies The Sundering Creates a Ten-Thousand Year Maelstrom (Low-End): 10.34 Gigatons, Island level The Sundering Creates a Ten-Thousand Year Maelstrom (Mid-End): 857.31 Gigatons, Large Island level+ The Sundering Creates a Ten-Thousand Year Maelstrom (High-End): 2.14 Petatons, Continent level This scales to everyone who scales to Malfurion Stormrage or Illidan Stormrage, who created another Well of Eternity later. Meaning Queen Azshara, all faction leaders, and everyone who fights them (save for some). Category:Blog posts Category:Warcraft